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My mother's belief that Shirdi Sai Baba himself escorted her safely to his shrine is indicative of how blessed she felt in being able to make the journey - as a foreign visitor with a lack of knowledge of the city - without incident.

With religious liberty under siege around the world, people of goodwill should stand for the rights of believers everywhere. Unpopular minority faiths are like the proverbial canary in the mine: When they die, further violations of human life and dignity inevitably are coming.

The irony of novels is that they are dressed-up lies with one crucial caveat: Unlike most lies, novels attempt to reach some fundamental truth of the kind our mostly inconsequential and barely-factual newsfeeds could never match.

While CVE is new, the idea of adopting programs and practices that may sound good but have no empirical justification, is tragically par for the course--especially when it comes to dealing Arabs and Muslims as threats to national security.

Professor Thomas has sharply noted why this is discovery is so monumental for Muslims. It appears to affirm what Muslims to believe is the greatest miracle of Islam--that it is unchanged from its point of revelation and to the end of time.

As a society, we're armed and dangerous -- and always at war, both collectively and individually. We're endlessly declaring bad guys (officially and unofficially) and endlessly protecting ourselves from them, in the process guaranteeing that the violence continues. And the parallels between "them" and "us" are unnerving.

The advent of Islam sought not only to introduce a new kind of social order but to limit the excesses of Meccan society, which directly harmed women and girls. Early Islam sought to elevate women and define them as independent agents possessed of free will, responsible for their own actions and imbued with certain rights and privileges over men.

It is the person who passionately insists on no involvement of such a force that has to furnish evidence for their fairytale belief in magical ex-nihilo creation. Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence.

Our prejudices and bigotry require very little attention. Only radical Muslims make the news and peace-loving Muslims do not. Few of us have Muslim friends. But lack of information is bigotry's best friend -- bigotry feeds on precious little (biased) information.

While we do not see a correlation between high numbers of violent incidents and high levels of anti-Semitic beliefs, Jews feel freer to live openly as Jews when they are confident of being accepted in their societies, not just in the absence of security concerns.

In his July 17 Facebook post, Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse, spewed unhinged hatred and bigotry against American Muslims. Writing his response to the Chattanooga shooting. Such language would, and does, radicalize ignorant youth. It fosters terrorism.

I respectfully plead that Congress debate the agreement in a balanced and historically-informed manner. Iran is a sophisticated country. The Iranians are a creative people who have lot to offer in the fields of literature, arts, religion, medicine, architecture, and commerce.

If you have an enemy in Pakistan and you want him to be killed in such a way that no one blames you then the solution is "simple." Just accuse him of blasphemy with respect to either remarks against Holy Prophet (PBUH) or desecration of the Holy Quran.

About Islam

Islam is a monotheistic religion based on the text of the Quran, believed by adherents of the faith to be the literal word of God, and on the leadership of the prophet Muhammad. The core profession of this belief is the shahada: "There is no god but God and Muhammad is the prophet of God." Followers of Islam are known as Muslims.
Islam is the third of the Abrahamic faiths, the first two being Judaism and Christianity. Muslims affirm the divine origin of these faiths through the line of prophets from Adam to Jesus, but believe that the Quran is the authoritative, complete and final revelation of God. The core practices of Islam are known as the five pillars of Islam -- faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage.